The usual method in the industry for printing buyers is to contact several inside or outside sales representatives of printing companies to obtain quotes for projects. However, this is very time consuming and does not necessarily result in the best pricing for the buyer. Furthermore, this is very time consuming for the printing provider because quotes have to be prepared for every project. The other solution is for the buyer to use some of the other Internet sites that have been established for obtaining printing quotes.
One Internet site that provides quoting functions is PrintBuyer.com. However, this application does not provide the same solution as the invention. More specifically, this Internet application does not provide an immediate quote. The buyer first must provide the specifications by completing several lengthy forms and then this information is sent via email to the printing providers that subscribe to the service. The printing providers then prepare the quote manually and send the quote to the print buyer via email or fax. These Internet sites do not allow the buyer to simply choose a graphic of an item for which to receive a quote. Thus, the benefits to the buyer are questionable. Furthermore, this Internet site does not make any attempt to match the requested product to the best printing provider for that product. The result is that the printing providers submitting quotes for that project may not be the most competitive companies for that project.
Another Internet site, PrintAccess, allows printing buyers to find printing providers using a three step method. The first step allows the printing buyer to select among several general categories, which include printing providers, prepress firms, designers, and other categories. The next step provides a subcategory of the chosen category. The final step allows the user to select a company within the subcategory by geographic location. However, the solution does not provide any quoting functions of any type.
Another Internet application, PrintBid.com, is simply a nationwide database of printing companies that allows the printing buyer to find a company based on geographic location, equipment, and specialties and learn additional information about that company, including annual revenue, client profile, years in business, and number of employees. However, this application does not provide any quoting functions.
Another Internet application in the printing industry is offered by iPrint. iPrint primarily addresses the procurement of business cards, letterheads, certain advertising specialties, and labels. This Internet application does not, however, provide any quoting functions for regular commercial printing. This Internet site allows printing buyers to purchase the products mentioned above but not any additional products.
Another Internet application recently introduced is called Noosh Inc. Noosh provides an Internet application that enhances the communication between print buyers and print providers. It also helps both print buyers and print providers manage the printing process more easily. However, it does not provide immediate quotes or use the type of graphic interfaces used by the present invention. A similar application is provided by Impresse, but as with the Noosh application, immediate quotes are not provided.
Another Internet application currently available is an application called Collabria. Collabria is a subscription based software package available to print providers. This application is an Internet based printing workflow solution that automates the process of buying, managing, and producing reprinted or templated print applications. A difference between that application and this invention is that the Collabria application does not provide any quoting functions.
An auction based approach for providing printing and other document services is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,826,244, issued Oct. 20, 1998 to Huberman. While the system disclosed there utilizes a computer network to speed communication between a customer and a plurality of potential suppliers, it still relies on a conventional bidding process by the potential suppliers in response to a description of a printing job provided by the customer.
So while there are other applications that attempt to provide solutions to printing buyers by providing a more efficient quoting and purchasing mechanism, there remains a need to provide a more efficient system that not only addresses the needs of printing buyers, but also the needs of the printing provider.